Photo: The exquisite contrasting shades and textures of a desert landscape. Phoenix, Arizona (2012). Copyright SJPhotographyWhere Love Prevails
The arc and ache of life move between love and hate – between peace and the wars within and without. I know this ride well. This space of back and forth, uncertainty, a nervous system on high alert, the desire for healing and to feel the weight, and light of Love’s embrace again. As a child, I had a deep inner knowing of the ever-present space of Love and grace. Yet, life, others’ agendas, trauma, and my own fears and need to survive developed a space that became more shadowed, jaded, harsh, and cold. It was my mind and body’s way to balance the pain and uncertainty of life and brace for what would come next. Yet Love always found a way to bring softness, and light back into my everyday life, meet my aching heart, and remind me of the truth.
I know this arc and ache of life is true for so many – this desire and place within that is exhausted by life and all that is happening, and the deep knowing that your own inner being is aching for Love’s presence, and longing for grace to find you and fill you with its warmth, mercy, peace, and certainty of being. We ask for relief and to rest in the grounded space of tranquility and spaciousness as we move through life – despite all that is unconscionable, unfair, and absurd in the world. When we feel lost to the realms of Love’s presence, and our reactions to life and others become tense, cynical, and our focus narrows it is time to look again. It is time to open back up to the mystery of life and see again with clear eyes and an open heart all the places where Love prevails.
Love is often thought of as a fleeting thing – a personal feeling of adoration and a spark of connection between one another. It is often used as the singular word that sums up the emotional bonds between ourselves and others, pets, places, things, or possessions. In this limited form, it can provide a powerful expression to explain to others how passionately we want, need, desire, or are connected to someone or something else. We feel its warmth and its magnetized pull. It can bring a smile to our lips and warmth to our hearts just by thinking about it. Love has a power that is known to all. It is the feeling that can break and heal hearts, grow, and stunt relationships, endure and fade with time, shift and change, or remain dedicated and committed depending on how it is used. Yet Love is so much more than a personal feeling towards others or things. Nondual teacher and author Rupert Spira says:
Love is never the property of an individual. Love is the recognition of our shared being. Love is the natural condition of all experience before thought has divided it into a multiplicity and diversity of objects, selves, and others.
_Rupert Spira, “The Transparency of Things: Contemplating the Nature of Experience”
Love is in everything we touch, see, hear, taste, smell, and move within.
It is what we are born of and into.
It is in every step and every breath and beat of our hearts as we move through life.
It is found in your friends, enemies, and even strangers – beyond the shell of the body to where the soul resides – it is there.
It is in the dance of challenges, changes, upsets, and accomplishments along our life journey.
It is in every road we take and all the roads we do not take.
It is found in the tiniest freckle and in the largest galaxy.
It transcends space and time – and leads our thoughts and follows our mind.
While Love has no beginning or end, we attempt to hold it and limit its power, and harness its allure. There is a belief that Love is limited to this world – to bodies – to the cosmos and all that it contains – that Love is a resource that can be exhausted and run out. There is fear in believing that Love is here for us, in all things, and in all ways. Through the lens of fear, we harness ways to control and restrict our love and our hearts to try and avert a future recurrence of pain, broken-heartedness, or disappointment governed by the memories of a painful past. Yet Love cannot be controlled – it cannot be diminished, dismissed, or limited in any way. Fear is not the enemy – it is merely the obstacle to Love and accepting its presence in all things.
Love has no boundaries, no limits nor does it pick and choose who has it or who does not. There is no one that is more loveable or more deserving of Love than another. These are human ideas of Love, and beliefs that dictate the definition and scope of Love. I cannot conceive of a Love that only has eyes for some and not for others and only offers its comfort and grace when it suits itself or someone acts in suitable accordance to receive its favor.
Love is Love
It has no agenda
It does not judge
It does not know anything other than itself – as perfect Love
It does not know imperfection or who is worthy, deserves, or does not deserve
It does not know good or bad, right, or wrong
It only knows everything as Love
It only knows existence as Love
We have many names for Love
Where Love is God - God is Love
Where Love is The Universe – The Universe is Love
Where Love is The All That Is – The All That Is is Love
Where Love is The Creator – The Creator is Love
Where Love is The Great Mystery – The Great Mystery is Love
Where Love is Source Consciousness – Source Consciousness is Love
Love is the language and essence of being, of body, and soul – of mind, bones, muscles, cells, and atoms. Of sickness, health, birth, and death. Love is in the song of a bird outside your window. A cat purring in your lap. In the breath of our every waking moment, and in the slumber of sleep and rest. Love is in the activities that arise in each day and how we are witness to all of it. It only takes a moment to see-and-feel-and-know the Love that fills our lungs, beats our hearts, pulses through our veins, and fills our thoughts and dreams. In every ordinary, average moment Love waits for your notice and says “Yes I am here – I have never left – and will always be wherever you look, in whatever you hear, taste, or touch, in the rooms you move in and out of, the places you travel, the people you meet, and in the challenges you face.”
Is there not glory enough in living the days given to us? You should know there is adventure in simply being among those we love and the things we love, and beauty, too.
In his poem “Everything is Waiting for You,” David Whyte speaks to what is already here for us – that Love is in everything we encounter. It is through awareness and alertness to our world that we find the endless ways in which we are not alone, and where love prevails – that we are in the midst of living the drama – and living our life fully even if we obscure our present reality by holding out our hopes and dreams for an endless future of tomorrows. Grace is found in becoming present and aware of the precious truth that Love is in all that we could ever know – in this moment – Here and Now. We must accept that life is not a dress rehearsal but is meant to be lived fully Now – not yesterday or tomorrow – but in This – in Now – fully open to all the spaces where Love prevails.
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
The notes and accent of Love reside in every form, every being, every leaf, word, insect, cloud, smile, birdsong, and tear. When hard times come, we strive to overcome, to know differently, to rise above, and ride the tides of gentler times again. It is no surprise, nor is it a request to be granted because Love is yours. Always. It is in your gentle pause to acknowledge what is here in this moment – in the simple moment of Now – the essence of all that is happening, moving, swaying, leaving, and becoming bears the fragrance of Love.
We can tie it into small bundles of personal will and limited access to give and receive. We can see it as merely what is felt for a child, a partner, a dear friend, or a beloved pet. We can limit its presence in our life as what is known to the senses and only ever a part of the living world while we breathe. Yet we Love those who have passed on. We Love others that we met once on another continent at another time – never to be seen again. We Love the idea of the children that we may have and even name them, create rituals, and decide on their life path and possibilities before they are even born as flesh and bone. We long for places that we have visited or go to frequently and the natural elements, trees, foliage, flowers, landscapes, and wildlife that are present in these experiences. We Love because it is pervasive in all things. We Love because it speaks to our hearts and shows up in all the things that we hold dear. It is our home and our way – our peace, grace, and willingness to start again each day.
Love is the soul’s light, the taste of morning, no me, no we, no claim of being.
_Rumi, “Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing”
If you believe you do not know Love in this moment or that it has abandoned you somehow – simply close your eyes and listen, cover your ears and see, reach out and touch whatever is near you, taste a piece of fruit or a fresh glass of water, smell what is in the air, wrap your arms around yourself and hold your being with reverence. Even in our body’s senses of knowing we can understand and feel Love – we can find it in everything and anything right here and right now.
Seek the unknown and extend yourself beyond your own grasp. Do not abandon your own truth or being as Love, or your loving presence in this moment as the irreplaceable part that you bring to the whole. You are an extension of Love and its nature in this universal and connected space and time. Your journey holds no mistakes, offers no wrong directives, or judges you as less than or not enough. The world and its ways offer you a taste of Love’s essence in each and every moment and show you the way to come home to yourself as the ever-present and precious being of Love. Our role is to just live life authentically and imperfectly, and remain open to the grace, peace, and spaces where Love prevails.
Join me for a guided meditation (in the audio version), to rest a moment, feel into our body and being, and all the spaces where love resides as we send out a prayer for light.
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